Agriculture committee  I am Mark Brock. I farm around Hensall, Ontario, and I am chairman of the Grain Farmers of Ontario. On behalf of our 28,000 grain and oilseed members, I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman and the committee, for the opportunity to provide our perspective on Canada's suite of busines

Agriculture committee  Sure. I think really you're speaking to that conversation around public trust and having to ensure that our consumers and society as a whole are comfortable with the farming practices that we're following specifically within the grain and oilseeds sector in Ontario. We really f

Agriculture committee  It comes back to how you build that consumer trust and who is viewed as a trusted source of information. Personally, I would have to say that as the chair of an organization such as Grain Farmers of Ontario, my credibility is less than my wife's would be in terms of her engagem

Agriculture committee  We've been having significant conversations with our counterparts across Canada in the grains and oilseeds sector about business risk management programming from a national perspective. Really, what we are looking for is some flexibility. I highlighted our opinion of what we lo

Agriculture committee  First of all, I'll address your question around AgriStability. For a grain and oilseed producer who isn't very diversified and is mainly in just grain and oilseeds, when you add the rule of two times your allowable expenses, that actually really deflates our target even lower.

Agriculture committee  For sure. When looking at the situation from an Ontario perspective, we're so close to our consumer base that transportation isn't as much an issue for us. Then we obviously look at further processing or adding value to the products we produce, trying to get more profit or value

Agriculture committee  For sure. I think there's a certain level of responsibility, too, from producers not looking to government to fund everything, and here's a prime example. Money from my farm has gone into a partnership with a private company. I think some government support could offset that a li

Agriculture committee  Thank you for the question. In looking at a pilot project, what we're really thinking about is looking at designing something. For example, an insurance product created in western Canada—the western livestock price insurance program, I believe—is used by western producers for ca

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for this opportunity to provide our comments on the PMRA's proposed decision on imidacloprid. My name is Mark Brock. I'm chairman of Grain Farmers of Ontario. I operate a farm, in partnership with my wife Sandy, in Hensall, O

Agriculture committee  I really appreciate your question. We were part of the process and are involved in the process. Really, when I step back and look at the situation as a whole, I think that when we bump into these issues around concern about the products that farmers use within the environment,

Agriculture committee  There are some alternatives, as I highlighted in my presentation to the committee, around some new seed treatments that are registered for corn. They're more expensive and provide less control, or a narrower spectrum of control, so that they're not quite as effective in the marke

Agriculture committee  Sure. The way it usually works for corn, depending on the company a farmer would purchase seed from, is that we have the ability to buy seed that's treated with an insecticide or without an insecticide. On the neonic-treated side, it's usually around $4 to $5 a bag for the seed t

Agriculture committee  The seeds are available through life science companies through their genetic base. They're life science companies, so they provide seed chemical and those kinds of inputs.

Agriculture committee  Yes. There's some production of soybean seed within Ontario and within Canada. There is a very limited amount of seed corn produced in Canada. A lot of it does come through the U.S., just because of their ability to produce it and manage it better. A little bit is produced within

Agriculture committee  From my standpoint, I'd prefer maybe not to look toward a phase-out but toward an agreed approach on developing what the acceptable risk is for the product and then taking steps to mitigate that risk. Maybe in the three-year period we can re-evaluate how the measurements of the